St. Charles Will No Longer Televise City Council Work Sessions

Starting in March, the St. Charles Media Department will no longer record or televise monthly City Council work sessions. 

The council made the decision to stop recording the monthly work sessions in an effort to make them more of a "working meeting" instead of a formal meeting, said Council President Mike Klinghammer, Ward-8. 

"They are our oportunity to have a working dialogue," he said, adding that changing the format might improve the discussion. 

Klinghammer said the decision was not made to limit public input on the meetings. 

"These are still open to the public, this certainly has not changed," he said. 

Work sessions are typically held on the second Tuesday of the month and sometimes on the fourth Tuesday of a month, if necessary. The meetings are a time for council members to discuss ongoing issues. 

The media department will continue to record City Council meetings, which are held on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, as well as meetings of the Board of Adjustment, Landmarks Board and Planning and Zoning Commission.

These can be viewed on Charter channel 990 and 118-20, live on the city's website or later on demand. 

Producer Jessica Rash said traffic to the website skyrockets the day after meetings. In the last year, about 4,700 streaming videos were watched online, she said. On peak days, an average of 120 videos were watched on the website. 

Rash said the media department doesn't have data about the number of people watching the show on cable TV. She said it can be expensive to obtain that information. 

"There's a lot of people that are watching in online, there's got to be a decent number of people who are watching on cable," she said. "We do get calls if, for some reason, a meeting doesn't air. ... That kind of lets us know people are watching. They do know what time it's on."

In addition to showing meetings, the media department offers programming such as a weekly Coffee with the Mayor segment, profile shows with council members and a YouTube channel. See the program schedule here. 

Learn more about watching the media department programming here.